The Geology Museum in Bandung, West Java, received a new and spectacular collection Wednesday consisting of pre-historic elephant bones excavated from sites in Blora, Central Java.
"The fossilized specimen is special not only due to its age of around 15,000 years, but also because it fills a missing link in the history of the elephant in Indonesia. Further, the bones were found in complete condition," museum head Yunus Kusumbrata said.
However, he added that only around 30 percent of the bones were brought to Bandung while the rest were still being excavated at the Medalem subdistrict in Blora.
The fossils were from the Elephas hysundrindicus species, which was estimated to have lived during the Pleistocene epoch about 1.8 million to 11,500 years ago.
It is believed to be the missing link between the pre-historic Mastodon and Stegodon elephants and the modern elephant...